City Council Meeting   10/7/2019

Music playing

you

We apologize for the delay.

Our Assistant Clerk is joining us this evening, so welcome.

Thank you.

Ms. Hill?

Here.

Ms. Walker?

Present.

Mr. Signer?

Here.

Ms. Galvin?

I have an announcement.

Good evening, everyone.

This announcement comes from Mr. Alexander.

The B&J African American Book Fest will take place on Saturday, October 12, 2019 at the Gordon Avenue Library, which is located at 1500 Gordon Avenue from 1 to 4 p.m. Mr. Alexander and our Legacy Incorporated presents the B&J African American Book Fest, focusing on local African American stories.

in partnership with the Jefferson Madison Regional Library.

Again, the event is on Saturday, October 12th from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Gordon Avenue Library.

The presenters are Ann Wicks Carter, who's a local historian, Miss Paige Hill, who's a storyteller,

and Mr. Alexander, an author from the area.

There will be a tribute to Brenda Burrows, Gresham Groit, Lady of Fables, June Mitchell Bridgeforth of Ujamaa Bookstore and the former owner in the Roland Buford Book Collection.

This is a free event and the community is invited.

For more information, please contact Mr. Alexander at 434-202-0773 or at alexxan-i-c.net.

Second announcement, really quickly,

There is a run.

The UVA run's coming up this weekend.

There you go, Community Bridges.

I knew one of y'all had my back.

If I didn't announce it, I was going to get in trouble.

The Community Bridges run is this Saturday.

The proceeds are going to support different local initiatives, local organizations supporting affordable housing.

I'll be running with the F.A.R.

group.

I know Habitat Hazard group as well, as well as a couple other organizations.

Forgive me for not mentioning you.

It's still not too late to sign up.

You can go on racesignup.com.

and you'll see the race there against the Community Bridges Run is this Saturday 8 a.m.

It's a four-miler and I heard whoever wins Dan Rosenzweig was going to take you to lunch.

Yes, I have that one.

DMV Connect wants to

Thank everyone for giving the opportunity to serve customers on Tuesday September 30th which has passed but in the city space they processed 84 transactions.

They had 53 driver identification cards and of those 40 were real IDs so they were really impressed with that showing and they want to look forward to the next visit.

Proclamation?

for domestic violence awareness.

Whereas the problems of domestic violence are not confined to any group or groups of people, but across all economic, racial, and societal barriers and are supported by societal indifference.

And whereas the crime of domestic violence violates an individual's privacy, dignity, security, and humidity due a systematic use of physical, emotional, sexual, psychological, and economic control

And whereas no one person, organization, agency or community can eliminate domestic violence on their own, we must work together to educate our entire population about what can be done to prevent such violence, support victims and survivors

and their families and increased support for agencies providing services to those community members.

And whereas the Shelter for Help and Emergency has led the way in the city of Charlottesville in addressing domestic violence by providing 24 hour hotline services to victims, survivors and their families, offering support and information and empowering survivors to chart their own course for healing.

And whereas the Shelter for Help and Emergency commemorates its 39th year

providing unparalleled services to women, children, and men who have been victimized by domestic violence.

Now therefore be it resolved in recognition of the important work being done by the Shelter for Help and Emergency, our Mayor Nikuyah Walker with the support of City Council hereby proclaims the month of October

October 2018 as Domestic Violence Awareness Month and urge all citizens to actively participate in the scheduled activities and programs sponsored by the Shelter for Help and Emergency and to work toward the elimination of personal and institutional violence against women, children, and men.

OK, and we'll get that updated.

Is there anyone from the public who would like to speak on a matter on the consent agenda?

Consent Agenda, Item A, Minutes, August 19, Regular Meeting, September 3, Special and Regular Meetings, B, Appropriation, Funding for Virginia Temporary Assistance to Needy Families Employment and Training, Pilot Program, $50,000, Second Reading,

C, Appropriation, Charlottesville Albemarle, Adult Drug Treatment Court Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Grant Award, $300,548, second reading D, Appropriation, Refund of Tax Payment to East Market Street LLC, $16,173.30, second reading

E. Appropriation, Virginia Department of Historic Resources, 2019-2020 Certified Local Government Grant Funding for 10th and Page Neighborhood Historic Resources Survey, $31,590, second reading F. Appropriation,

Albemarle County funding for Albemarle County resident workforce development training, $13,395, second reading.

G, appropriation, housing opportunities for people with AIDS, HIV, $240,642, second reading.

H, appropriation, Virginia Housing Solutions program grant award, $484,785, second reading.

I, Resolution, Hedgerow Land Acquisition, $37,500, first reading.

J, Ordinance, PEG Bandwidth, Virginia, LLC, Telecommunications Franchise, first of two readings.

K, Ordinance, Rental Relief for Elderly and Disabled, second reading.

Is there anyone now who would like to speak on an item on the consent agenda?

Second.

Any other questions or comments?

Ms. Robinson, someone said that you have a really nice radio voice.

That carries five visits.

All right.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, members of the council, the public.

I just want to I don't have anything to report from our last meeting, but I do want to talk to the community about the trolley route, the pilot study.

We did begin the process of changing the street signs going down Second Street where the trolley will be turning.

We also

are making the stop so that the bus will stop at Midway Manor and then continue on South Street and turn down Second Street and go through the mall and then make a right onto

Marcus Street.

So we are in that process.

We started with the trolleys on Sunday, and this will continue for a period of 90 days.

And we do have the professional here who sits in that position now, Mr. Garland William, who is the head of our CAT system.

who has the necessary expertise to be able to talk about the performance of that route with this change.

If anything should change in terms of us not being able to find the necessary data that we've been looking for as well as with the community that it will be serving, we will be able to expand that beyond those 90 days.

But I think with this level of expertise in those particular areas, we'll be able to find that information.

So once again that has been reported through various media outlets.

It is on the CAT's website as well as on the city's website.

We've also done social media through Facebook and Twitter to be able to put that information out there about this route change.

So it is in effect and we're moving forward.

Yes, if we need more information we will be able to do that but I think that we'll be able to gather all the information we need within that 90 day period.

Yes, also too I know the council did decide to do in their previous meetings six months but that information was given to the public by the traffic engineer but not the person from the CAT system.

What we do have, like I said before, someone who has operated a larger system who can, you know, basically tell the performance of different routes in different areas and their overall performance and if it needs to be enhanced or not.

Are there any other questions or problems?

I just want to say thank you, Dr. Richardson.

OK, thank you.

Next we have the community matters.

Got there rather quickly.

We have Honi Peacock.

It's Honi-Ann.

OK. Honi-Ann.

OK. Do I go there?

Good evening.

Hey, as many times as I've done this, this doesn't get easier.

I'm Brooke Ray.

I'm the manager of food and agriculture programs for the International Rescue Committee here in Charlottesville.

I also represent the IRC with the Charlottesville Food Justice Network and have taken an active role in the food equity initiative.

I believe you guys received the report, is that right, from us this week or today.

Having grown up here in Charlottesville, I have seen my peers, friends, neighbors struggle with getting by as Charlottesville has become more expensive and popular place to live.

Affordable housing is of course one key issue and a core issue, which I also care deeply about.

But to my mind, this is the bare minimum of what we should be able to accommodate to the backbone members of our community who keep our city running.

Affordable living, which includes healthy, affordable food as a human right, which is the issue that I care so deeply about, is included in this concept.

As a self-proclaimed world-class city, we can do better to meet the needs of our community.

But we on the Food Justice Network know that this is not something that City Council can do alone, and that's why we've invested the last year in our work.

I want to commend City Council for their support of the city's food equity initiative over the last year and urge you all to dig into your reports and continue to invest in food justice.

As a participating member, I co-led the urban agriculture chapter of the food equity initiative.

I've had the opportunity to work closely with the city's Parks and Rec department, especially Chris Genzik, and learning about some of the best practices from them in developing land access plan for urban agriculture.

Chris and the Parks and Rec office work closely with our team to provide advice and feedback to our recommendations to you.

So I want to thank them as well.

I've also had the pleasure of helping to fulfill your charge to engage our community at large, to build leadership to drive this change.

We have gathered so much input and also supporting community food justice advocates present here today.

Anybody here want to give a shout out?

to lead our recommendations directly from our residents.

We've led community surveys, the IRC sponsored a photo voice exhibit to hear from our refugee community about what matters most to them.

We held a large Charlottesville community-based workshop where

People from around the country, but particularly community members and city members and city staff were present to design food system change.

We've gathered 330 community signatures supporting food access and food justice in Charlottesville.

We've begun to cultivate momentum and partnerships, and we need to continue our work together.

There are so many in the crowd that will speak to affordable housing.

Please also note that we support these efforts as we cultivate an affordable city to live in.

People have a right to affordable housing and food in their community.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Hi, my name is Jasmine Chen.

Good evening.

My name is Jeanette Kawachi.

I am a resident of Charlottesville.

In full transparency, I also work for Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville.

I am also the board chair for the Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for the Homeless, and I'm a member of the Charlottesville Albemarle Affordable Housing Coalition.

I'm here to express some thoughts and some requests that I have of councillors regarding the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund, or the CAF, item on tonight's agenda.

I want to start by saying thank you, thank you, thank you.

I'm utterly grateful for the

For city staff and council members, commitment, incredible commitment to affordable housing, 30 plus million dollars over the next five years.

It's truly incredible.

I know it took a lot of work, a lot of listening, a lot of accounting, gymnastics, and a lot of strong personal convictions on your part to get here.

So I really want to emphasize and thank you for that.

Last year during the CIP budgeting process, you all worked really hard together to ensure that the CAF would be funded despite the fact that in the city staff's original budget, there was no money allocated specifically for the fund.

under your direction the staff worked to allocate approximately $800,000 initially to the fund and then during the March 27th work session as well as the following city council meeting you all expressed a will to commit an additional $755,000 of the city's anticipated year-end surplus towards the CAF.

making it whole at 1.55 million.

As December is fast approaching and there's been whisperings of a lot of competing priorities for that surplus, I would like to kindly remind Councillors of that previous commitment that you have made and to really urge you to follow through on that commitment.

With respect to the current round of applications for the CAF, I really want to express strong support for the HACS recommendations.

Sorry, sorry.

The crossings two.

That's right.

We have an opportunity to end chronic homelessness in this community.

It's incredibly exciting and I ask for your support.

for that recommendation.

I also support funding AHEP for critical home repair services.

It's absolutely essential for preserving affordable home ownership opportunities for low income families in these communities.

But as you listen to and as you consider a CAF recommendations, as you consider the surplus, as you consider next year's budget,

I want to ask councilors to please commit to a funding strategy that really guarantees a robust continuum of housing.

Good evening.

Good evening.

My name is Kizzie Walker and I'm a city resident of Charlottesville and I have been all my life and I just wanted to read something to you.

I live at 115 Mount Pillier right here in Charlottesville and I'm here today to thank you for the support for

Affordable Housing and to ask you to continue to support more affordable home ownership opportunities in Charlottesville.

I was born and raised in Charlottesville and I spent early part of my childhood growing up on Hardy Drive.

I spent most of my childhood living in Garrett Square.

Life was hard, but it was also good.

I grew up with family around me in Charlottesville.

Everybody, my sisters, my brothers, my parents, my uncles, we all lived here.

here in Charlottesville.

I always had someone here to support me if I needed it.

But now everybody is gone.

It's just me and my dad and my brother.

That's it.

Everybody left.

Even I left for a little while.

I moved to Waynesboro back in 2007.

Even though I had a pretty good job here working at the Hilton Garden Inn, I still couldn't afford to live here as a single mom.

So I moved to Waynesboro.

But I tried to keep my job here.

I was driving back and forth for a while, but that drive, especially with the higher part of Afton Mountain, it took a toll on my car and eventually broke down.

So I couldn't keep my job here anymore.

When I left and when the rest of my family left Charlottesville, it wasn't because we wanted to leave.

We left because no matter how hard we worked, no matter how many jobs we had, our wages couldn't keep up with our rent.

And I have seen this happen to too many black families in Charlottesville.

We're being pushed out of our own communities where we have lived for generations to make room for students and other people with more money.

I work full time at a hotel cleaning 15 to 18 rooms a day for $11.25 an hour.

My ankles are swollen and aching because I have pins and screws in my foot from a surgery I had earlier this year.

I am on my feet all day long and I deal with things that you don't even want to think about.

Feces, blood, throw up, and other bodily fluids that you just don't want to know.

There are so many people like me working for $9 to $10 an hour doing backbreaking work that makes the city what it is.

We keep the city running.

We keep football fans happy and coming back.

We feed you.

We clean up after your messes.

We drive you to where you need to go.

We watch your children.

We take care of the elderly and disabled.

It's people like me that makes Charlottesville one of America's best cities to live in.

But I feel like we are treated like we don't deserve to have a place to call home here.

And that just does not feel right.

Now I know and really appreciate the city is investing a lot of money to fix public housing and to build more affordable apartments.

That is really important.

It's going to help a lot of low income families.

So thank you.

My question to you is then what?

Is renting, or even worse, public housing the end of the road for families like mine in Charlottesville?

Places like public housing and Friendship Court were never meant to be permanent, but there are places that have been there for years, for decades.

The people that have been living there for years and decades.

They can't leave because they can't afford anything else.

My mom lived in public housing.

I was raised in public housing.

Now my oldest daughter is raising her children in public housing.

That is four generations in public housing.

It has got to stop.

It is going to stop here with me because I'm working hard to finally become a homeowner in Charlottesville with Habitat for Humanity through their Pathways to Housing program.

When I applied for the program last year, I was living with my two children in a single room in a house shared with other people.

It wasn't a place meant for children or even humans, for that matter.

But it was all that I could afford at the time.

When I applied, my income was too low and my debts were too high to meet Habitat's program requirements.

But instead of just saying no to me, they told me, yes, we're going to help you get financially stable first so that you are ready to become a homeowner.

And since being in a program, they are helping me find a better paying job, helping me pay off debts, and they help me get into a safe and affordable housing situation so I can work on my finances and get back on my feet.

Charlottesville is my home.

This is where I grew up.

This is where I built my relationships.

This is my home.

I want to stay.

I want my kids to be able to stay and their kids to be able to stay if they want to.

And the best way to guarantee that is if I become a homeowner

if we have a safe and stable and affordable place to call our own.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Zoe Pham.

Hi, how are you?

Good evening.

Hello, my name is Phyllis Meredith and I live on Elliott Avenue.

You say you're the first habitat homeowner in Charlottesville?

I've been in my home for 27 years.

Being a homeowner has been a blessing.

I look around today at rental prices and I know I wouldn't be able to afford it unless I got a roommate or something.

I have two sons.

My younger son was in the hospital when I found out about Habitat, starting to build homes in Charlottesville.

I had a friend in Lynchburg who had purchased a Habitat home and I was looking through the phone book to see if Habitat was building in Charlottesville.

The place we were living in had wires hanging out of the ceiling and it wasn't safe and I was actually paying two electrical bills.

I was paying upstairs and downstairs, unbeknownst to me.

I was sitting in the living room when I got the call that I had been chosen to be the first Habitat homeowner and I just sat there and all I could do was cry.

October is a special month for me and that's when Habitat started building my own.

So this is an anniversary for me.

To be a single parent, it wasn't easy, but I'm proud to say that I was in my 20s when I first became a homeowner.

Having a home meant my kids had a safe yard to play in and their own rooms to do their homework and to play.

I was able to teach them the values of hard work.

They had the stability of being in one home for most of their lives and learned to respect what they owned, what I owned.

Now my kids are grown.

I have four grandbabies.

Both my boys are doing well, and their careers are blooming.

My oldest son is a certified mechanic, and he put himself through college.

My youngest son is a fitness trainer, which Wes, you've ran with him, David Johnson.

We couldn't have done it without Habitat.

In 2007, we had a mortgage payment party at my house after I paid off my house in full, never missing a payment.

And I felt a huge sense of relief and accomplishment.

I felt like I did something for me and my family.

With Habitat, you can move ahead and you look forward to being a homeowner.

And it gives you a goal to work towards, something you can pass down to your children.

I met a lot of wonderful people through Habitat.

I've developed a lot of long friendships.

Habitat basically became part of my family.

I'm now proud to be serving on the Habitat Home Owners Council Committee along with nine other Habitat owners.

We know first hand the power of affordable home ownership.

Together we're meeting once a month and advertising Habitat on how to be better supported

Families in our community.

Habitat cares about what we have to offer and what we share.

One of my boys was following in my footsteps.

He was trying to, but he couldn't afford to live here, so he lives in the county and he's still trying to find a home.

It's too expensive to live here, so.

It breaks my heart that he's planning to move away because it's so much cheaper to live somewhere else and it's just sad.

I hope that you will give more thought to the importance of home ownership.

It allows people to have dreams and visions and their children's dreams and visions come true.

It helps their children to have fresh starts and a chance to thrive.

Mary Perry.

Good evening.

Mary Perry, city resident.

Thank you, Mr. Richardson, city council.

Thank y'all for doing what you did with the trolley.

Yesterday, the people were so excited because they saw the trolleys coming down every half an hour.

And today, there were so many people getting on and off that trolley.

You can go ahead and do it for six months.

Tally already there.

We saw six people get off that trolley and two of them had bicycles, Ms. Gavin.

And they just rolled on down, you know, continued our journey down the street.

But then we saw Mr. Long not here.

Mr. Long used to take Ms. Long about 20 minutes to get across the street.

Well, Mr. Long sit there and waited on the trolley.

And he rode that trolley today.

He felt so good, he said, riding it.

But thank you very much because

The people at Midway Manor right now, we have been trying to get this thing together since last year, but we only presented to y'all the beginning of the year.

I'm sad to say that it took like one, two, three different times to say that the pilot was going to go through.

But now that it's finally going through, let's hope that you got signs everywhere, Mr. Richardson.

I don't know why people can't see them.

Because you got one sign that's so big they say, do not enter.

Take a blind man not to see that.

but everything's going pretty good and thank you very much because Ms. Galvin, we may not see eye to eye on things but you did support that and I'm happy for that.

But anyway, the second thing I want to talk to you about, a lady came to me and asked me the next time I come to the city council to please ask the city council if you could look into these ladies that being incarcerated and the Department of Social Services is taking our kids and putting them in foster care.

And then when they get out of incarcerated, they have to go to the judge to get their children back.

It makes me feel like they're down on the border somewhere.

But one lady stayed incarcerated for 60 days, she couldn't find her two kids.

They had put them in foster care.

When she went to the Department of Social Services, they told her that she had to go to court to the judge and all of this stuff.

And she had family members that they could have asked to keep her children.

So she asked me if y'all could look into it.

I don't know what else to tell her, but just that I'm

I'm the messenger.

So if you can do that, it might save a whole lot of heartache here.

Charlottesville is going through a lot of stuff now, and it's dropping on one race.

Y'all got to wake up and smell the coffee, because everyone's race is getting tired.

OK, thank you.

Hi, I'm Kate Fraley.

I'm a city resident, Mayor Walker, members of city council.

I'm here to talk about the PCRB as an individual and also as a member of the People's Coalition.

The decisions you will be making about the Civilian Review Board are very important decisions for our community.

Your support of a strong police Civilian Review Board

will be concrete evidence that problems of disproportionality and inequity are being taken seriously.

As you heard from the folks from Fairfax, it is important to have staff support, transparency and independence.

Also, you heard that there is evidence, academic evidence, that police oversight boards have a positive impact on disproportionate minority contact when their oversight ability is broad.

It is important that the Charlottesville Civilian Review Board be able to investigate complaints.

I think my tax dollars would be well spent on a strong PCRB.

Charlottesville has a long history of police problems, those problems of disproportionate stop and frisk continue and the consultant's draft report of the research on adult disproportionate minority contact in our community

includes evidence of not only disproportionality, but also shows evidence of disparities throughout the criminal system.

It is vital that civilians have an avenue for civilian oversight and a place to trust with their complaints.

Do not water down the bylaws presented to you from the first PCRB.

Make it strong, supported, independent and able to investigate.

Please support the way the bylaws are written.

And I'd like to ask if you can tell us now what the next steps about this are.

Will you have another work session?

Will you have a public meeting?

Will you bring it to council in two weeks and have a public hearing?

Thank you.

Good evening.

Good evening.

My name is Shanice Gray and I reside in Charlottesville.

I would like to take time to speak about the lack of affordable housing in the city.

I was born in Charlottesville and lived in Prospect until I was 12 years old before my parents purchased a home off of Ridge Street where I currently reside because rent is too expensive for me to live comfortably on my own here in the city.

I've been looking into purchasing a home and I'm now aware that I can't afford to buy a home in the city.

because of the lack of affordability.

I love Charlottesville and all that it has to offer.

I love the city so much that I decided to stay and attend UVA after graduating.

I graduated in 2011 with a master's degree in elementary education.

I taught at Yancey Elementary for four years before venturing outside of my comfort zone.

I moved to Northern Virginia for two years, but there's no place like home, so I moved back home to Charlottesville.

I would love for my children to attend Barrett

Johnson, Walker, Buford, NCHS, just like I did.

But without affordable home ownership options, it's not going to happen.

Is Nikuyah.

Huh.

Nikuyah, is she here?

No, she's not coming, so we're not going to discuss that tonight.

That's a different issue.

First off, great job on the trolley.

The residents of Midway Manor, as Mary said, that were aware to see it and know about it.

They're very happy about that.

Number two is the young lady with the baby that was here.

There's no baby-changing station in the bathroom.

Y'all should probably try to put one in there.

People do bring kids now, you know, sometimes.

I think you need to be a family-friendly restroom and a government builder.

And then, oh, funding CRB.

I agree with that.

And then the last thing I want to talk about is this petition for Chief Brackney.

Because I feel like after August 11th and 12th a lot of you that were here on the podium then sat on this podium and you yourself said something about assault rifles after we seen so many walking in the park.

I just think it would be really beneficial if you guys that are in this position would stand behind your people when they make statements or they say something that kind of do make sense after what we went through on August 11th and 12th.

None of us felt comfortable with assault rifles in the park on August 12th.

You spoke on it after August the 12th.

You had a million things to say after August the 12th.

I don't know if that was y'all former kind of, you know, wanting to take accountability or whatsoever or if it was fake accountability or whatever.

But when she go on the news and she make a statement and then people signing this petition to like get her fired, like learn to stand behind your people.

Because if I work for the city and I'm not speaking for her, but I'm going to speak on behalf of her because I don't know how she feel or whatever after it.

But if I worked for the city, I would feel some type of way.

Like, y'all love taking a back seat when people really stand up and say something that really do make sense.

But when it's the popular thing to do, when every news station here, you want to seem like you're doing the right thing or you want to make it look like you're staying behind with somebody, you know, the changes that we want to make based off of, you know, what all happened August 11th and 12th.

But in reality, y'all don't because nobody protected her for saying that.

Not one person.

and I'm not saying, like, don't get me wrong, we all have our issues, she's not perfect, okay, I get that, but when she got on the news and said that, y'all should've stood behind her.

Honestly, you should've stood behind her because you two were here in 17, y'all stood up here and said something about assault rifles after August 11th and 12th.

So it just, I'm just saying from like, it just seems like black people always get the bad end of the stick.

Stop painting that image and then we can stop saying black people getting treated this way, black people being treated that way, or black, you know like, y'all make it a color thing.

Y'all paint the picture.

So I'll just say for myself, most of those signatures for the petition, they were from outside of the area.

Well, but I think it's important to note that.

I mean, it's not something that I took seriously.

I agree with the statements that she made, and we knew that she was going to make them.

Mayor Walker, if I may add that Councilor Bellamy and I are on the committee for the legislative request to the General Assembly and it'll be really loud and clear in that packet our position on assault rifles and that is our, we repeatedly ask to have a ban in the public areas and so that's going to be coming I believe at the end of October, beginning of November.

So that is how, that's going to be a public statement and the council will get a chance to discuss it

Hello, Sena Magill, Anderson Street, Charlottesville.

I just wanted to bring forward a few concerns that the 10th and Page Neighborhood Association came up

brought forward the other day.

The trucks on 8th Street continue to be a problem with deliveries just letting you know.

Again, I know this is a difficult issue because the larger trucks can't pull in to the main parking lot for the restaurant, but a lot of the smaller trucks are also not doing that.

A lot of neighbors are very worried that someone's going to get hurt soon because of the way it blocks traffic and the way it blocks visualization.

Also, there has been a request a number of times over the last year for an audible signal at the Preston Rose Hill.

There is a 94-year-old gentleman who lives there who is nearly blind who needs that, as well as another younger gentleman who is legally blind.

who would really appreciate the audible signal saying that goes walk, walk, Preston and Rose Hill.

And then Mr. Gaines had brought forward that the John West placard is in a very hard to see place and kind of just in the middle of nowhere.

And that it would make more sense if at some point that got moved over towards Hardy Drive, where I guess Mr. Mr. West had

a large impact.

Good evening.

I'm David Redding and I'm with Eco-Village, Charlottesville, 480 Royal Road East.

The food initiative warrants the City Council's continued support.

They've brought in some additional money and it looks like it's going quite well.

I'm a member of Food Not Bombs and we provide food every Sunday for free for 100 plus people at Tonsler Park.

We also cook a meal to feed people and build community.

The food that we give away is gleaned from Whole Foods, Rebecca's, Food Lion, the Farmer's Market, Albemarle Bakery, Great Harvest Bakery, as well as other organizations.

We are very grateful for the support of The Haven.

We do all this as a volunteer basis.

We always welcome people to assist us with our mission, so we're always looking for volunteers.

And I want to thank all the supporters of the Saturday Seaville Farmers Market.

Yes, that's quite good.

One thing we have to do at the farmers market

is we have to allow a better space for the nonprofits.

I don't know if you go to the farmers market or not, but it is where the porta-potties are in a fenced in area.

So only the people who are headed towards the porta-potties will see anything for the nonprofits.

And so we really need to make a change there.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I'm Myra Anderson.

I live 2517 Hydraulic Road.

So this week is actually Mental Health Awareness Week.

And so I thought that since I'm someone who has struggled with mental health issues, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, since I was probably 12 years old, that I'd give you a little insight on mental health and what my experience has been as an African-American.

Traditionally, African Americans, a high percentage, do not engage in mental health services.

So I want you to keep this in mind because almost every study that comes before you has not had an adequate amount of African Americans represented in this study.

For example, one of the benchmark studies for trauma is the ACE study, Adverse Childhood Experiences.

This study was conducted

On less than 5% of the people were African American, everyone had a college education that was in the study and so everyone had insurance.

Now you think about African Americans in general, you can get knocked out of any one of those categories.

So my point is that not only are African Americans not engaging in mental health services, but the ones who do have been met with microaggressions, have been met with a system that is not culturally competent, and sometimes have chose, based on that and the history of how African Americans have historically been treated in the medical profession, have chose not to engage.

Since this is Mental Health Awareness Month, I want to re-bring your attention to the fact that we need culturally competent services in this community.

It's not enough to have a black counselor in this organization or that organization because no matter what your mental health condition is, when you add on the added layer of trauma

racism systemic and structural.

It's a whole other level.

We had a Sankofa Center about 15 or 20 years ago.

I'm urging you, I'm urging you, and I will keep urging you, right, to

consider recreating, we need our own space to heal and we cannot do that healing when the same people who oppressed us are the ones that we are supposed to talk to this about.

So I sincerely hope that you will consider that.

and also trauma services.

We just had this domestic violence awareness month.

That's trauma right there and there are no service providers in town including Sarah who are providing long-term services to trauma survivors.

who did not ask for that trauma upon them, but you as a city need to make a commitment to send to these people who are struggling that we will provide the space for you to heal and we'll be culturally competent and we have a commitment to do that.

Thank you.

Larry Scott.

No, that's not there.

Katie Zeng.

No.

All right.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak?

We have a couple more spots.

OK. No one else?

OK. All right.

I just want to share a story because the story is always good when you're talking about spending money with the calf and how important it is to house a lot of different cohorts in this community.

Recently someone who was practically homeless was housed through a program.

and so had been outside for a number of years I would say between five and ten so when you first come inside those four walls it takes a while to transition in your mind the space that you have out there versus what the walls provide so that person still had friends who were at the campsite that they were living at and recently

after having been housed for about three weeks, decided that they wanted to go out, visit friends, and maybe stay at that campsite overnight.

And so they went and the other person visited, decided to, his tent, the tent was still there, I think the sleeping bags, blankets, whatever it is, to provide bed roll space, laid down to perhaps rest overnight.

After about an hour or so, he told the case manager that, you know what, I decided I wanted to go home.

and that's what this CAF means, that's what a couple of the decisions at the HAC means to a lot of people here in this community home.

So thank you for the bold funding and hopefully you'll continue that on and I just wanted to share that story to let you know what this means to some people.

Thank you.

Anyone else who would like to speak?

OK.

So we're going to break until 10 till?

you

First up, we have a public hearing ordinance to release a portion of sewer easement.

McIntyre Plaza, first of two readings.

Hi, I'm Lauren Hildebrandt.

I'm the director of utilities.

Mayor and Councillors, in 2015, the City was granted a 20-foot-wide sanitary sewer easement cross property known as McIntyre Plaza at the end of Allied Street.

The development is owned by Seaville Business Park LLC.

Seaville Business Park has requested the city vacate a portion of an easement in order to accommodate a sign structure.

The sewer line in the easement carries sewage from the buildings within the development and those flows are carried to a sewer line within the Allied Street right away.

Additional language has been proposed in the recommendation that includes the owner will maintain the sewer line for his development on the property

and within the Allied Street right away.

Utilities and Neighborhood Development Services have reviewed the request and confirmed the sewer line is not needed for public use.

A public hearing is required by law that gives the public an opportunity to comment on the proposed conveyance of a property interest.

Staff recommends council approve the ordinance vacating a portion of a sanitary sewer line within the McIntyre Plaza

Conditional that the owner maintains the existing sewer lines from the buildings in the development to the public sewer main within Allied Street.

And any existing sewer lines within the vacated easement will be the property of the owner.

If you have any questions, I'm available.

Okay.

Are there any questions from council?

Okay.

We'll open the public hearing.

I'm going to get Michael Payne, city resident.

I'm going to get a little creative here.

Hopefully you won't be angry with me.

But I don't have any strong opinions on this project, but I think with this project it's important to be aware of impacts of infrastructure and projects on nearby developments like, for example, the special use permit you'll be voting on.

for the West Main Street development later, which will have a strong direct impact on First Baptist Church, one of the most historic buildings and important community spaces in our city.

And like how in this process you've engaged with nearby residents and owners, I hope you will take seriously the concerns that

The First Baptist congregation has about that project and seek to take their lead on their concerns about what that special use permit could have on that historic building in the character of that community space and in the larger context of what's happening in West Main Street.

All right.

Is there anyone else here who would like to speak on the sewer easement from McIntyre Plaza?

No?

Okay.

Going to close the public hearing.

Mayor, oh.

Oh, good.

Thanks.

Okay.

Yes.

All right.

Thank you.

Good evening.

This is a request for a comprehensive signage plan.

It is for the Hillsdale Place, which is a proposed retail center at the intersection of 29 and Hydraulic.

It will reuse the space of the former Kmart and Gold's Gym.

Ten tenants are anticipated.

They're anchored on the west end by a 40,000 square foot store at the east end by a planned 20,000 square foot store with smaller stores in the middle.

The signage plan will regulate signs for the tenants and includes three monument signs on the site.

Per city code, applicants for development is subject to both a site plan review and design review may request approval of a comprehensive signage plan.

These plans are defined in their written plan detailing the size.

I'm sorry, the type, quantity, size, shape, color and location of all signs within the development and where the number, characteristic and location of the signs do not comply with the sign regulations.

Comprehensive signage plans are approved by you all the council upon a determination that a there is good reason for deviating from count from the strict application of the sign regs and be the comprehensive signage plan as proposed will serve the public purposes and objectives at least as well or better

than the signage that would otherwise be permitted.

This plan will allow six types of signage as defined by the city.

Wall signs, canopy signs, projecting signs, monument signs, sandwich board signs, and temporary signs.

At the September 10, 2019 Planning Commission meeting, they reviewed this item and provided recommendations which have been incorporated into the plan that you all are reviewing tonight.

The Commission recommended that the maximum aggregate sign area for the retail center as a whole would be 1,050 square feet.

That would be for all the wall signs, canopy signs, projecting signs and the under canopy signs.

They also suggested or recommended for each tenant that the average signage area be as follows.

For tenant 1, which is the large store at the west end, maximum aggregate of 300 square feet of signage.

For tenants 2 through 9 in the middle, the maximum aggregate per tenant would be 75 square feet.

And for tenant 10, which is at the eastern end, the aggregate would be no greater than 150 square feet.

And the commission also supported three conditions that were proposed by staff, the clarification that no more than three of the wall signs will be installed at the height of 28 feet above the ground and that exceeds the normal reg of 20 square foot.

I'm sorry, 20 feet.

Got square feet too much in my head here.

The second were conditions that related to sandwich signs on the site.

And the third was including some specific citations of the city's sign regulations.

I believe the applicant's here.

OK. Any questions?

Council members?

All right.

I move to adopt resolution approving the comprehensive signage plan for Hillsdale Place.

I just have a brief comment.

I will support this signage plan.

It would work with or without the proposed changes in zoning that were made two years ago in the hydraulic small area plan.

I do think, though, that we need to beginning

to get really serious about turning that parking lot into a place where people can live, raise families and work as well.

Again, we can we seem to make progress on the little things.

But moving forward, I hope that we actually do start implementing that hydraulic plan.

That's all I have to say.

And this signage plan can can work either way.

All right.

Thank you.

All right.

No further discussion.

All right.

Please vote.

All right, that carries five to zero.

Thank you.

Madam Mayor, Members of Council, Brian Halesco, Principal Planner for the Department of Neighborhood Development Services.

As you stated, this is a special use permit request for a property located at 612 West Main Street, also known as the University Tire and Auto building.

This was heard at the Planning Commission's meeting.

on August 13th, and they recommended approval of this with your attached resolution, although we do need to note some changes in that resolution as it was not transcribed entirely correctly.

Condition 1B, building height shall not exceed a height of 52 feet.

It was listed as four stories.

in your staff report.

Also, item 4B under that, the landowner shall engage the engineer who performed the baseline survey to prepare a protective plan to be followed by all persons performing work within the development site that shall include seismic monitoring or other specific monitoring measures of the adjacent property as recommended by the engineer preparing the protective plan and minimally

include, strike the word child there, installation and so on and so on.

Both the applicant and the commission raised these corrections, so I don't think there's any debate between the two of them as to whether or not it should be in here.

One item that you did receive correspondence from the applicant that they would like further consideration on was the recommendation from the Planning Commission that a minimum of 53 parking spaces be constructed on the site.

That would be item 1E, condition 1E.

On your staff report

So that would require, as drafted, it would require that there be 53 spaces on the site regardless of the minimum parking required by the building as it goes through the site plan process.

So the applicant has requested some consideration or possibly modification of that to better reflect their building plans.

Staff is in support of that modification.

We have a minimum parking requirement that offers some flexibility so we don't feel that

Any change to this will negatively impact the neighborhood or the surrounding or the property itself.

But the applicant may want to discuss that further in front of you.

Yeah, I have a question and it might be echoed by other councilors.

The property is located in the parking modified zone.

So the parking modified zone permits one space per residential unit.

That is a difference from the rest of the city where if your units would have three or four bedrooms, they'd be required to have two spaces.

So just one space per residential unit in the parking modified zone.

Additionally, any commercial development in the parking modified zone, we cut the required parking that would normally be required outside the zone in half.

So if your commercial development would require 10 spaces throughout most of the city, it's only a requirement of five.

Additionally, any units that are 5,000 square feet or less, the parking is exempt from any parking requirement.

And the Parking Modified Zone allows you to meet that parking either on-site, off-site, or potentially pay into a transit fund or a parking fund.

There's some regulations about that.

What's the total?

Until they actually have a final site plan that's allocated the spaces within the building, we won't have a final number.

So the applicant I think is saying that 53 would be difficult with the BAR review of this building to accommodate in that basement floor plate.

They certainly are willing to

put as many spaces as they can because they control them.

The final number will depend on how many floors they do commercial, how many they do residential.

But even if you were to strike this condition entirely, that parking modified regulation is still there.

They have the option to meet it on-site.

Yeah, the parking in that area is a challenge.

And so I think that's, you know, from what I remember of the Planning Commission discussion, that was a big point for them.

The parking modified zone, so years ago we had a parking exempt zone and it stretched, most of downtown was included in the parking exempt zone.

It stretched all the way down West Main and even included the corner.

At some point there were a few developments that were proposed I think with minimal or almost no parking and that led to a movement to modify our

parking exempt zone and divided.

It's divided into three zones.

The urban core zone is still around the mall.

We don't require any parking for by right developments there.

The parking modified zone is kind of what was left over.

The corner was carved out.

There's a corner parking zone.

You don't see that very often because not much gets built there.

But the remainder of that was the parking modified zone.

So that's where it came from.

We didn't want to do

I think so.

Possibly.

I think the applicant's also considering some other modifications that you have available to you in the code in terms of reductions.

So proximity to bus stops, bike parking, above and beyond what we minimally require in that zone.

So there are a number of ways that they can, there's the not well defined but kind of shared parking between the commercial and residential units.

And they also have spaces in the 4th Street parking garage with 600 West Main?

They do, yes.

Are those leased up?

I believe I'd have to ask the applicant.

I know they did execute the agreement with the Jefferson School for those spaces, so they do have them available.

And if I may, that leads to the question then, why was there a numerical kind of description to begin with?

Why wasn't it just based on required parking must be on site?

The applicant's initial drawings showed a floor plate and with the striped spaces that totaled 53.

So you kind of get into this question of how much of that plan

is how much of that detail can you carry forward into the plan.

So I think just having talked to the applicant about this I think if they had to do it over again they'd probably just show a full like gray box on there and say we can accommodate a full floor of parking below grade to serve this building.

How many spaces that is is still to be decided.

They striped it out at 53.

That was what was shown at a community meeting and our

Our intention with any of these applications is that the conditions reflect the building that was presented and that detail be captured.

So in hindsight, the engineering of that floor is probably going to be extremely difficult to get those spaces.

The applicant can talk to that.

They've also, like I said, they've got BAR review, one of the items that the BAR mentioned.

It could.

If they can't make it work with the condition, they could certainly ask for it, but I think that's the reason they're here now is they know they can't make that.

and I am sensitive to like different bodies putting different restrictions that almost make anything impossible to achieve and I mean much as like you know I would say with West 2nd much as I have my own concerns about West 2nd well beyond that what we found was that that market space we wanted to maximize it to get as many market stalls and yet the BAR wanted to have trees everywhere which I also would enjoy but that we seem like sometimes we're competing against ourselves so I'm very sensitive to that and the impact that has on people that are bringing projects forward and how many times they have to go around and around

Good evening.

Mayor Walker, Mr.

Manager, Members of Council, thank you for having us here this evening.

My name is L.J.

Lopez with Milestone Partners.

We're representative of the applicant.

The applicant previously sent a memo and explained his absence.

He apologizes he couldn't be here this evening to speak before you.

He has a family personal commitment that he had to attend to.

So thank you to staff for introing the project and giving the overview.

I do want to step back and just highlight the process, because I think the process leads to where we are.

So as an SUP, that process, we have one, a community meeting, two, we meet with the BAR, three, we go to the Planning Commission for a joint public hearing, and then four, we're here before you.

So the project is touched several times throughout that process.

The project will further be touched by the BAR several more times before we receive a certificate of appropriateness on a design to proceed forward and get a site plan approval to proceed forward with the project.

that several additional meetings at 600 we had the experience of the project that exists today on the adjacent site.

We were there six or seven or eight times to work through the design process of exterior materials and outdoor terraces and

mock-up panels and signage and the like to get the building that's there today.

All of those decisions end up having impact on the design, the floor plate, one of which is we talk about parking specifically and we think about 600 as the case study example next door.

There was preservation of two historic structures, contributing structures to the historic district on site.

Those structures didn't allow for an entire floor plate of the property below grade to provide parking.

So we had to, in that instance, take advantage of the parking modified zone and the ability to satisfy the parking requirement for the project off site.

That wasn't desired.

We'd like to provide our own parking on site.

next door on the project, the application that's here before you, we have that opportunity.

We have the opportunity to provide all that parking on site.

The issue, the contention, the assertion that we have, and hindsight's always 20-20, but in the application, the intent of a floor plate, a full floor plate, and identifying what a yield potential of 53 parking spaces was, was to

illustrate that we could satisfy parking in its entirety per any permutation of the zoning ordinance as parking is calculated on site.

There will be BAR design review that comes before that will potentially have impact and we know that already based on our one visit to the BAR.

Two of the conditions that have come forward are articulation in the front building facade.

They don't want one uniform facade of the building as a long street wall.

Two, they want the garage door, the garage entrance to the vehicular floor plate, the parking level below, to be removed and set back from the street wall so that it is not imposing and vehicular on that pedestrian streetscape.

Three, there's desire for open space and breaking up the building and there's a mural that was recently painted as approved by the BAR on the mini-marque building that is an international muralist that's there and so there's open space to preserve the view and sight line of that mural on there.

that is going to have impact on the floor plate below and parking and so as we move forward and as we anticipate what we will see at the BAR and what the realities of spaces on site you know from a logistics and layout standpoint 53 is going to be an unachievable number and tying that to again in hindsight we would have

submitted our application differently and addressed the parking you know differently at the beginning but nonetheless here we are.

Our intent is to provide all of our required zoning on-site.

The condition that was submitted in the memo, I have copies of it here if that is helpful for anybody, is to provide a minimum of 40 spaces.

Should the calculation of the zoning ordinance as we submit our site plan require more, we will provide more and that will be provided on site.

Correct.

If for whatever reason

As the parking modified zone has provision for bike spaces on site and distance to the bus stop, multimodal transportation, you can get parking reductions.

Say, for example, our unit mix and the parking reductions yielded less than 40.

We would provide a minimum of 40.

If it yielded more than 40, say it was 45, we would provide 45 and those 45 would be on site.

OK. Tying it to 53 as a specific and unwavering number poses

And my perspective on that is if you can achieve 45, I would just want you to achieve 45.

I want you to maximize the number of spaces that you can provide on site.

Because at that point, the

Whether it's yielded or not, if you can provide more than 40, I would, I'm trying to figure out how we can word it because I would want more than 45.

A maximization, and I gave some consideration to that language as well, and maybe that's

post this but demonstration to the satisfaction of the director of NDS that we've maximized parking on site as included within that condition.

Well the feedback that we heard from the BAR was an articulated front street wall and that open space plays into that so it may not be there on that building with the mural but it would have been someplace and so that

their design feedback and consideration plays into that happens to satisfy and is a design consideration now to work around.

Again, to highlight again the

Parking matrix and calculation for within the zoning ordinance.

There's a unit mix and a yield of residential and commercial, and that will yield a number with available reductions.

At 53, we know the available reductions will put that at less than 53.

Could be 45, it could be 47.

What we intend to do is to maximize that parking on site.

and provide the parking onsite and remove the option and the flexibility within the zoning ordinance to provide that parking offsite.

And as is identified on 600, because of the preservation of the two historic structures, we were not able to provide the parking onsite.

We had to seek offsite parking in order to meet the zoning ordinance.

That offsite parking is a revenue stream that's leased at spaces at Jefferson School.

Understand that there are parking constraints in the district and our intent long term through the drafting of that agreement with Jefferson School, those are available for reevaluation every five years.

based on parking concerns and considerations and changes and modifications as may have come forward in that interim five year period.

So as the two properties are adjacent to each other under joint ownership with all the spaces being satisfied on site,

we should look at in five years a utilization of what this 600 West Main spaces are and what their utilization is and if we can manage between the two projects all on-site parking within their utilization and free up those spaces at Jefferson School we're open to and the document that we did for the long-term lease agreement provides for that so

So are those spaces leased up?

The building is currently 20% leased, so we're not fully occupied.

The Jefferson School parking spaces are leased.

They're under long-term lease.

We have executed that agreement and had to do so as part of our

final occupancy process and provide evidence of that.

So we are renting those.

We're making those monthly payments.

They're currently not being utilized by residents of the project.

That's anecdotal based on 20% and a very short window.

I understand the numeracy question, but I think it's also, it sounds like, and please

I apologize if I'm assuming too much but it seems like the council would like to ensure that all the parking requirements occur on site.

And I think the numeracy question is a different story but you can simply add on the condition of condition 1E at the end a sentence

All parking required for the project per the ordinance shall be located on site.

Well, I'm going to leave that to you all.

But even the per the parking modified zone, that sounds like something.

Is that something that we would revisit under the current zoning changes?

I know that we may not be able to factor that in now, but that doesn't sound I mean, it sounds like we are living in an ideal world with this parking modified zone that isn't happening.

I think if there's a movement to edit the parking requirements within the city, that would be something that would come out of a comprehensive plan vision that would inform staff to do a review, but it would be the entire area.

At this point, the parking modified zone is, you know, they are required to provide less parking than they would if this building were located, you know, two blocks to the south.

So it is doing something to that effect of what we're trying to aim for.

Yeah, I have an anecdotal piece on this.

So I, you know, I lived for a long time, had for 10 years a house that was in a

in a PUD that was part of this parking right on Fifth Street.

And so it was six units with two or three bedrooms and only seven spaces between them.

And one of them was a handicapped space.

that everybody parked in anyway.

And it was a real issue.

Some landlords, they had to rent other spaces for people to use.

But on the other hand, it really did lead people who wanted to live there, a lot of them had one car or two cars they had to park in the street.

But it did lead people to try and have fewer cars because they kind of had to, but it was uncomfortable.

So I think what we're doing here as a matter of policy is

is enacting plans that go, that are in accordance with what the city tried to do when we did this in this corridor, you know, a long time ago, just to try and decrease a very car heavy, but I'm not going to say it was easy.

We had this debate about somewhere else in Belmont, I think, if I remember right, it's not easy.

I mean, you have to, yeah, and then I think that's right.

But to me, the major thing is what does the formula as it exists now dictate?

And if it's 40 rather than 53 with the plans, it seems like what it should be.

But I think we should go eyes wide open as all these things happen on West Main Street.

you know that the city should should be guiding tenants and owners like you got to plan ahead because if you take up a you know you rent one of these places and you all of a sudden you want another car it's gonna be hard and my expectation is a lot of streets around there will do permit parking over the next years because they're gonna need to like they've done in other places so they're gonna prevent people from parking

on the street, which they should.

So I think for me it's twofold.

I'm sorry, Councilor Galvin, it's twofold.

I think, again, if the formula calls for 40, then that's kind of where we need to be.

But I think we have to be very careful about projects such as this one specifically when we talk about parking.

And I know that there's an emphasis for the city to move towards being multimodal in a wide variety of different ways, encouraging people to ride bikes, walk, bike, so forth.

However, there's unintended consequences to the affordable housing piece when we think about people saying, well, you only can have, or essentially by default, you're only going to be able to have one car if you live here.

Well, I think the footprint of the neighborhood right now is,

There's still folks who've been here, still live there, but I think this particular project, the development won't be an option, I agree, but even if those who may have the means to live there, you're still boxing them out to a certain extent, because if I have the means to be able to afford to live there, but I only can drive one car, like my wife and I, we have two cars, I mean, we have four children, we have to have an SUV,

We need a regular car or we have three cars.

So I mean, this wouldn't be an option for us.

If I may just add something.

Sure.

At the same time,

Decreasing the need for parking, structured parking, is one way to make the project more affordable because one parking space costs, structured parking space is at least $20,000 to build and that factors into the cost of the building.

So I think the other important thing to point out is that they're charging for parking spaces.

So this isn't something that's inherently part of the project.

People have to consciously buy the parking space.

So, and that, when we read the housing needs assessment study in 2018, April 2018, that was one of the recommendations or one of the observations that Anita Morrison made that in order to drive down the cost of housing, you got to drive down

the amount of structured parking you put into a building.

And one way to do that is that you charge people per space.

It's not something that's folded into their rent like a utility.

So again, not this is this is responding to our ordinance that we have written in terms of affordable housing as a special use permit.

There is the choice of building on site, off site or put money in the in the Schausel Affordable Housing Fund.

But right.

And that's a formula.

And so I think to Councillor Signer's point, we're looking at what the formula is requiring us to do.

And what we can do in this resolution is just say that it's got to be provided on site as per the ordinance.

it seems to me any number we put in there feels arbitrary and I just don't understand where the 53 came from other than it was a drawn out there as a hypothetical but it's not even required and yet they won't know what the required parking is until they really do the unit mix in the square footage mix of the retail.

That's why even the 40 seems arbitrary except it was just I know give some comfort to the

to everyone in the area that there's at least a floor.

And I'm willing to go with that, but is it 45?

I just want to remind you that in terms of affordability, I think if I remember correctly, these units will start at about 1,400 and go up to 4,100, right?

So we're talking about just following the formulas.

My question is what would

So if we say 53 spaces and staff can ensure that they've done everything they possibly could to maximize the space and it's only 48, how difficult is that to come back to us and say based on everything they've done, staff can tell council with certainty that

They would have to file for an amendment to their special use permit.

So are you all not comfortable with that process?

Well, they already know they cannot do 53.

So I don't want to already set them up for like no matter what, you're going to have to come back through this whole process again.

I'm just trying to understand.

Is there any language you can put in there that obviously they're meeting all of the needs, but they're also being responsible?

Like he offered to get approval from the city manager from NDS like that.

You have maximum.

I don't know.

So the Planning Commission, and we still got an email today that they fill at this 53.

I understand, but it was a, even, we were at the discussion, right?

We were at the, that was during, there was two different discussions.

What's the number that you estimate with your

So we put forward in the memo a number of 40 spaces.

And we calculated that out.

That was page three or four of that memo in the exhibit.

That calculation took into account concessions or considerations for the bus stop, for bike parking on site, and others as they may be available.

I guess I would just like to know, is staff's assessment that that's correct?

On those facts, because that's what we can deal with, is that the right number on our formulas?

I mean, typically the parking requirements are something that's shown on a site plan and going through the site plan process.

One thing we can say is the Planning Commission does look at all site plans that have a special use permit, an active special use permit on them.

So that item would come back to the Planning Commission for some level of review of that site plan.

We'd certainly in the staff report call out this particular issue because so much time has been spent on it.

as staff until we have an actual final site plan submission to us that lists out those units and kind of does that parking calculation.

I can't tell you if 40 is the minimum or not.

I can't guarantee that it's going to work until I see the interior of this.

But just with the numbers that they provided that they're planning on now, is 40 the accurate number with the bus stop and with the different, you know?

Yes.

Okay, so 40 is the number with what the formula would dictate with the actual plan right now.

I think it can change.

Maybe there's language that says but shall work with staff to maximize the parking on-site to the greatest extent possible.

I don't know.

Thank you for allowing me to speak to address the concerns what I've heard and

Parking is a concern.

We want to remove the option within the zoning ordinance to provide that parking offsite, taking capacity out of other parking lots in the district, which we did not intend to do in 600.

But because of the historic preservation of those buildings, we had to to satisfy.

Here we have the option to not do that.

We're OK to remove that option and condition.

We're comfortable with a floor of 40, so the minimum number of parking spaces to be provided if we're going to gravitate towards a number.

But from a process standpoint, to Councillor Hill's point of maximizing those spaces on site, as we do have to bring a site plan back to the Planning Commission, perhaps I might offer different language or different checkpoint in that we have

Maximize parking to the satisfaction of the Planning Commission at the time that so they will review that site plan they'll see that floor plate and there's a verification and checkpoint that That we have maximized it that that is our intent to do it on-site and maximize that parking if even if it is In excess of what the formula is we would not arbitrarily

reduce that below or build less as a result if we could maximize it on site.

And so that may be an alternative from a process standpoint.

If we went forward with 53, as I understand it, and Mr. Blair highlighted, we would have to amend, and that's a fee, a community meeting, BAR, planning commission, joint public hearing, and then back here.

It would seem like we could figure that out hopefully tonight as opposed to knowingly go and set ourselves up to return in that process.

A couple things and just to go over just to make sure we're all on the same page.

The applicant did provide language that was sent to you all that states the following.

Underground parking shall be provided within a parking garage structure constructed underneath the building which shall provide all parking required for the project per the ordinance but no less than 40 parking spaces.

No direct access shall be provided into the underground parking from the building street wall along West Main Street.

In addition to that, it seems like there have been two other, obviously the number is again the council can consider the number, but there seem to be two other aspects that should be added to the condition.

One is all parking required for the project per the ordinance shall be located on site.

and the second is that all on-site parking shall be maximized by the project to the satisfaction of the Planning Commission.

I'm fine with that.

Still keeping the minimum floor, but also saying that it's on site and it's maximized to its fullest for review by planning commission.

So there's some concern about the word shall.

No, they have to do it now.

It's shall.

But I think it is important to underscore that.

No, they have to, based on the conversation and the Planning Commission approval, I mean, vote on this.

Make sure that that structure is sound and have the meetings with the

Occupants of the building about the building and there's provision or at least during the discussion to make sure that if there is damage that is happening that they have to stop and provide and correct the damage to the building or whatever is causing it.

So that conversation was had during the planning commission discussion and it's in here.

Because it was may before instead of that may include versus shall.

Mayor Walker, I'm wondering if we should read some of it.

Read it out.

So this is going to be item four of the resolution.

It says, the landowner, including without limitation, any person who is an agent, assignee, transferee, or successor, and interestingly shall prepare a protective plan.

Well, that's B, right?

Right.

So the protective plan does say shall.

Right, I guess the other question again for the council's consideration is the number.

When you make your motion, the motion currently in your packet has 53.

The applicant has requested 40.

That's one aspect as to when you make your motion, do you want it to be the 53 that's included in the packet or the 40?

And then also to include the two provisions that I

But even with that, we're reducing what's required in a zone that's modified so they will not have to offer the amount of parking that they would have to offer in another area.

Right.

Could I make a motion so we try to, so although I don't have something written down, but we need a motion to be able to debate it, right?

So if you could craft it, Mr. Blair, but I think the idea would be to amend it with the language that the applicant stated, which was to

To maximize.

Underground parking shall be provided within a parking garage structure constructed underneath the building which shall provide all parking required for the project and then we're going to strike project per the ordinance and then we're going to strike but no less than 40 parking spaces

No direct access shall be provided into the underground parking from the building street wall along West Main Street.

All parking required for the project per the ordinance shall be located on site.

Are there any further comments?

No?

All right.

No further discussion?

All right.

That carries four to one.

Good evening, Council.

I'm Joey Wenner, a city planner with NDS.

This item before you is a special use permit request for a sorority with up to 37 residents at 503 Rugby Road.

The Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority is proposing to expand and renovate their existing chapter house at this location.

The property is owned R3 historic and has a valid SUP for a sorority with up to 36 residents which was granted in 1978.

So the applicant is asking for one additional resident.

Modifications to front and side yard regulations are also being requested to permit architectural elements and to allow the front and north side walls of the existing structure to remain in their current location after the renovation.

The property lies in an architectural design control district, so the Board of Architectural Review made a recommendation on this SUP request.

BAR unanimously recommends that granting this SUP will not have an adverse impact on the ADC district.

Planning Commission unanimously recommends approval of this SUP application and proposes five conditions found in your packet.

However, there's one slight change.

that should be made to the draft resolution that was provided.

Condition one should read the boarding fraternity and sorority house use approved by the special use permit shall have a maximum of 37 residents.

So the last word should change from rooms to residents.

37 residents is what the Planning Commission recommended and what the applicant requested.

I'm available to answer any questions you may have and the applicant is here tonight as well.

Okay.

I know that three of us have seen the presentation.

Dr. Bellamy said he's not so concerned.

No offense.

Second.

All right, any further discussion?

Thank you.

Next, we have a resolution allocation of fiscal year 2020, Charlottesville affordable housing funds, first of one reading.

Hello.

Good evening, Madam Mayors and city council.

My name is John Sales, and I'm your new housing program coordinator.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Tonight, I will be introducing the FY20 CAF allocation recommendation from city staff in the HAC.

The CAF NOFA was issued on June 10th and expired on July 18th with applications due by 4 p.m.

The city received a total of five applications for FY funding.

The applications range in scale from single-family homeowner rehabilitation projects to the new development of an 80-unit apartment complex.

Each application met several of the city council's strategic housing goals, and they can be identified in each application that's in your package.

All the applications align with Goal 1.3 of the strategic plan, which is to increase affordable housing opportunities.

All the applications also align with the City Council's vision to provide quality housing opportunities for all.

The HAC allocation subcommittee held two public meetings to discuss applications that were received for CAT funding.

After the first meeting on August 27th, the subcommittee created questions that they wanted each applicant to answer.

The questions were sent to each applicant through email and the responses from applicants were then distributed back to the subcommittee to discuss at the next meeting.

On September 10th, a second meeting was held to discuss the application and responses from applicants from the questions that were created during the August 27th meeting.

After discussions, the HAC allocation subcommittee recommended fully funding the Virginia Supportive Housing Project to develop the crossings too with contingencies in place.

It is recommended that City Council require Virginia Supportive Housing to secure LIHTC funding for FY20, have site control before submitting the LIHTC application or by March 15th, whichever date comes first, and to have an agreement in place with CRHA to provide voucher support for the occupants that will live at the crossing stone.

Before December 31st, 2019,

HAC also recommends providing $42,000 in CAF funding for AHIP.

AHIP originally requested $600,000 in funding, which included $100,000 for the extensive rehabilitation of the historic Howard House.

But allocation subcommittee does not believe that particular project should be funded due to the amount of funds allocated to one property.

With the subtraction of the $100,000 for the Harbor House, it reduces AHIP's request to $500,000.

If Virginia's supportive housing does not meet all contingencies in place, the funding will be used to provide AHIP $500,000 minus the $42,000 that we are currently recommending in this proposal.

It is recommended a NOFA be issued for the remaining funds if Virginia's supportive housing does not meet all of its contingencies in place.

The city staff agrees with HAC on a recommendation and the recommendations are based on the following factors.

If the city council allocates the funds as recommended by the HAC allocation subcommittee and the city staff, we would create 86 supported affordable units with 80 of the units being new.

80 of the units will also have supportive housing services attached to them.

12 of the 80 units developed by Virginia Support for Housing will be fully accessible.

The Virginia Support for Housing project

will end chronic homelessness in the city of Charlottesville.

Staff recommends city council approve the attached resolutions.

Thank you for your time.

Brenda Kelly and I are here to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you.

And colleagues, if I'm sorry.

If I could just offer some brief comments specifically in regards to the crossings, too.

As many of you know, I've been working on this project now for about two and a half years, if I'm not mistaken, but the goal, as you alluded to, is to end chronic homelessness, and we know that there are some parameters

that we still have to meet, but I can assure you that there's a dedicated team of sorts which consists of several different partners from Virginia Supportive Housing, members of city staff, members from the county, members from TJPDC, the Thomas Jefferson Coalition for the Homeless.

The Housing Authority, several different partners have been working together for a very long time to try to bring this fruition.

There is deep discussion going on currently with the Housing Authority in terms of how we can work out not only the voucher situation, but the site control.

The site that we've been looking at is Levy Avenue.

Currently, the Redevelopment Committee as part of the CRHA has provided the team of sorts who's been working on the crossings too with a list of five questions that we need to answer, five very in-depth questions.

We're in the process now of answering those questions, and we're going to get them back to the Redevelopment Committee by the end of the week.

But there's been extensive discussion in that regard, including other site visits to the original crossings one,

as well as going and looking at another housing structure that Virginia Supportive Housing has done in Hopewell, Virginia.

Mayor Walker, I'd just like to respond to Councillor Bellamy.

So thank you because that's a really helpful clarification for me because unfortunately the only thing I've been able to find out about are some newspaper articles about the discussion that didn't have any resolution.

So the fact that the

the members of the Redevelopment Committee from the Housing Authority of sending you questions is very encouraging to me.

Very much so and I'll just kind of in full transparency part of the reason why we've had to I guess the initial core team of sorts which is 7A folks had to kind of move quietly in terms of trying to get all of the specifics and your parameters in place in addition to

trying to have the meetings with community members and whatnot.

I think Ms. Carpenter is still here, but in any event, we've been having meetings, inviting, you know,

Larger table meetings, but inviting members of the community and different partners.

But we've had to be very methodical because you don't want to count your eggs before they hatch.

You don't want to say, hey, we're going to build this structure that's going to end chronic homelessness without you truly having all the voucher situations squared away.

But now that we're moving in that direction, you hear more rumblings.

And that's why we were prepared to bring forth the proposal to the HAC that we're very confident that we'll meet all the recommendations.

Just a couple comments from me.

Yes, ma'am.

We have roughly, all of them, and my laptop died, but I was looking at it.

We have roughly all of them done, but there's some fine tuning, but I mean, and I have no issues or no qualms with sending those responses also to my colleagues on council.

We have a budget that we've already developed with potential outside partners in terms of funding.

And again, this partner,

Virginia Supportive Housing, another real deal in terms of developing this kind of housing.

So, you know, I think in full transparency, I really, you know, I've been one of the catalysts.

I'm not going to, this isn't a West project, but I think that the group that we have is truly committed with a great deal of expertise from Dave Norris and some of the folks who worked on the initial crossings to bringing forth this new venture.

And my second comment is just if this didn't work with the $750,000 allocation for the Crossings II project that the majority of those funds automatically would go to AHIP would be something that I would want

want us to discuss.

And on those discussions, because I'm on the allocation subcommittee, I think they did want to hear council's feedback on, because I raised the question, I said, well, what if this doesn't work out?

Do we want to then bring it back to the allocation subcommittee, which we would do for any additional funds that may come up in December if through a surplus that we would just kind of

Reopen things up some people just submit the exact same applications again and and be through it But then we would have another discussion point So I guess it's important for council to give feedback on if this falls through it is a pretty significant amount That would be then available again.

I certainly do because I do think what's wonderful to see on the table is the broad spectrum of need that we're meeting.

And I do want to pay attention to that.

We can't short shrift any one component of the spectrum.

I would echo those statements specifically after kind of the powerful testimonies that we heard from members of the public regarding habitat and the work that they've been doing.

Earlier, I think they definitely need to be in contention.

In addition to, thank you Mayor Walker for bringing up the Booker Street project, which I think is also formidable to say the least.

So from my personal, just kind of my perspective, I think it would behoove us to open it up in the event.

The other thing the group really felt strongly about is if there is really a red light.

It's better to know sooner versus later because these are all really important projects and initiatives that we want to be funding with current dollars.

And Mayor Walker, this is somewhat related, if I may say something.

And it's been mentioned already tonight by matters of the public

That at the end of the last budget cycle and the negotiations last March, we had made a commitment to make, I believe it was a one and a half million dollar commitment to the housing fund if there was an extra year-end surplus.

And I personally would like to make, underscore that again.

I think it's in total, so right now we have half of that already accounted for.

Okay, so that would be the second half.

Yeah, I understand that, but to say that we're going to go ahead and allocate that now, I don't know.

We're just reinforcing our interest if it's there.

We wanted to reserve it and put it into the CAF, and thank you for clarifying that, Vice Mayor Hill, that it would be 750 plus another 750.

If that's available, we need to put that back in.

That's what we had committed to do was one and a half million dollars.

That's how I remember it.

So basically we're just saying that at the end of the year we want to revisit for these other projects.

Yes, but if there is money

Yeah.

So to be clear,

Good evening.

During the budget process, there were a number of priorities council might have liked to have budgeted for, but we have made some decisions about what revenues would be raised and what cuts would be made.

And council articulated in a work session, before we do the slide, what you might like to spend money on should there be a surplus.

And I like to start there, and that's where this narrative gets started.

because I mentioned this at the hack.

It starts with the assumption that there is a surplus.

So we'll get there, right?

And determine that when you have that meeting, which you do every year at the first December meeting.

So if there's a surplus, then I would remind you that in addition to affordable housing, which I think was $755,000,

You decided you might put the money back into Friendship Court that we had cut, which was $400,000, and that you might fund the liability to the retirement fund that wasn't fully funded that we had amortized over 20 years.

And all in all, you made decisions that would have spent almost $4 million of surplus should there be one.

So, what I said at the HAC meeting is first there has to be a surplus, then council has to decide these are still the priorities, there's a brand new city manager who may have other priorities to suggest to the council, and should it be less than that $4 million, they may need to make either a prioritization that says we're going to pay for this, all of it first,

or we're going to in some proportion fund all the things we wanted to but people are all going to get half of what we said.

I feel like you just added flowers to that list on that PowerPoint.

You just made it all pretty.

Dogwoods.

Okay, so

But for this resolution tonight, where we are is to approve these resolutions as written.

So the 750 for the Virginia Supportive Housing Project, the 42,000, which is the balance for the AHIP programs.

But the major shift from what the council's asking for is that if there were to be any change in one of those projects, can no longer take those funds, that it would then go back to the allocation subcommittee.

Well, did I even make a motion?

That's what I'm hearing.

But to your point, Vice Mayor Hill, both resolutions are specific appropriations, one for supportive housing and one for AHIP.

And there's nothing within the resolutions that give the secondary if something doesn't work.

And that's where I have one question.

So let's hypothetically say one of them doesn't work out.

OK, what would then happen is the money is appropriated for a specific project.

Let's say Project X.

Project X doesn't come to fruition.

NDS would then make that determination that it hasn't come to fruition.

Then

Quite frankly what would need to happen is the appropriation couldn't legally be made because Project X isn't able to accept the funds, but what would then happen is the HACS allocation subcommittee This would go back to them.

They'd make an additional recommendation to the council.

It would come back.

So from looking at the request summaries, it looks like that we started talking about part one.

Can I talk about both of them?

Sure.

OK.

I'm just interested in the additional funding, the remaining funding of the $42,000.

How was that determined?

So the city received all the applications through email and there was some discussion because a couple applications came in behind the 4pm deadline.

So after taking out the two applications that came out behind the deadline, it was left between Thomas Jefferson Community Land Trust,

AHIP and Virginia Supportive Housing.

The Thomas Jefferson Land Trust, they were asked for more than the $30,000 per unit.

So they were taken out and the two applicants were Virginia Supportive Housing and AHIP.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

I move after resolution the allocation of the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund for the Virginia Supportive Housing Crossings 2 project in the amount of $750,000.

I just want to thank and credit Councilor Bellamy and you and the hard work of all the other folks involved with it.

It's a really big deal.

Thank you.

I can't really make a difference.

We'll appreciate it.

And I move we adopt a resolution of allocation of the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund for Albemarle Housing Improvement Program, Critical Rehab and Emergency Repairs Program in the amount of $42,000.

Any further discussion?

All right, please vote.

All right, that carries four to one.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Hill, for your work on the hack.

Good evening Mayor and Council.

My name is Misty Graves.

I work at the Department of Human Services.

I've had the pleasure of being the staff liaison to the food equity initiative for this past year and I'm really excited to have these two individuals present on the progress they've made towards the objectives they set a year ago and also

Thank you, Misty.

Good evening.

My name is Chantelle Bingham.

You guys know who I am, but just for the record, I run the Charlottesville Food Justice Network, which is a program of City School Yard Garden.

And I'm here with Jeanette Abenator, who is the Executive Director of City School Yard Garden, the Urban Agricultural Collective, as well as the Charlottesville Food Justice Network program.

I just wanted to take a moment to pause.

This time last year the Food Justice Network had done a lot of work already for the city of Charlottesville and one of our key

Members, Lisa Reader had passed away the day before we did the food equity initiative and she was a key engine to a lot of the work that has been done and we still kept moving along so I just wanted to take a moment to pause for her and

One other woman who has been really instrumental in Charlottesville, Holly Edwards, who I had the opportunity and gratitude to work with, also passed away two years ago.

I have my master's in public health.

A lot of the work that I do is always going to be around health equity in Charlottesville.

And I also just wanted to take a couple moments for her as well.

We're going to talk a lot about equity.

We're going to talk a lot about health

So now that we've filled some of the space of gratitude, I just wanted to thank the city council for passing the food equity initiative.

Like we said, this was a long process and we've been in the movement for a couple years now.

Here are some of the high arching things that we were able to achieve over the past year that I think are the most important.

Number one is really cultivating a new model for community city engagement that prioritizes community voice and decision making.

All the photographs on the front page of the food equity initiative, those are people that really engage throughout this year.

That's not something that

We just put together for fun and those are real people that were engaged.

The only one that's there is Lisa Reader's picture who, like I said, was not present.

One of the second things that we did is continue to cultivate trusting relationships between the city departments and nonprofits to tackle systemic issues of racial equity in the food system.

This is something that really has not been present before.

A lot of the network organizations who are nonprofits, we've been trying to work and cultivate relationships with city departments for a really long time, but really it was the launch of the city's Council's Food Equity Initiative, which

really gave us momentum to start those partnerships in a real authentic way.

We've also been able to directly increase alignment between city staff and community needs as it relates to health and food equity under a food equity lens.

City department leadership

Thank you, Misty, for being our liaison.

And there's also been a lot of other folks in the room, as well as Chris Jentsic, Alice Ikufana, and Jason Ness from Office of Economic Development Services that are really working to increase awareness of the role that their sector plays in cultivating food security.

I named those four, but there is a lot more, as you have seen in the report.

We engaged with about 10 city departments.

I will say that two of them are missing.

So City Market, we did have an interview with them.

They do have a food equity profile.

It did not make it in.

I'm sorry.

And also Human Resources also has a food equity profile.

It did not make it in.

And I apologize for those two.

I did the best I can to put the other 10 in.

So there's two profiles that are missing that would round that out to 12.

And we'll get that to you guys as well.

And then the last one of course is elevating cross-sector understanding of community planning around affordable housing, climate change and food security as an integral to building self-sufficient citizens of all ages.

Below you have our collaborating partners by the numbers.

Those are the people that were most engaged through the food justice network, the local food, local places, map to health.

Those are the three key ones and then we did a lot of planning around citywide food equity initiative.

This is a quick slide on what brought us together.

You can see the graph on the side is that percentage of the population that's food insecure, 16.7% from the mouth to health report.

And we are very much behind with our Healthy People 2020 goal of 6%, specifically in Charlottesville.

And then to the side is that city council directed

that really initiated the thinking around the food equity initiatives specifically.

So a couple years ago, City Council directed Thomas Jefferson Health District to do a lot of research and that was through Councilor Galvin as well as many others around Healthy Corner Stores initiatives.

Some quit stats around health disparities.

These children are from West Haven.

I took that photo.

a couple years ago.

So that is not from the Health Equity Initiative, that's from West Haven Community Day of 2016.

But nearly 37% of Charlottesville third and fifth graders are classified as overweight.

This is around 50% for African American youth.

Things that we know, people that come from low wealth communities disproportionately suffer higher rates of diet related illnesses.

And then in our schools, of course, we have a very, very high

student population that are eligible for free and reduced lunch across the whole school district is 55% but you have nuggets of neighborhoods such as 10th and Page where a lot of those kids it could be as high as 82% that are qualifying for free and reduced lunch.

Like I said, Charlottesville Food Justice Network.

We're an emerging collaborative.

It's about 35 organizations now.

These are the first 21 that gathered in 2015 to really start the

Building food equity and what does that lens really look like.

We really sought to spark dialogue and host community events and engage around action.

For those of you who don't know what food equity is.

It's a system in which all residents have equal opportunity to acquire good food that meets our nutritional and cultural needs.

One thing that's left out of this, it's a synonym, you could also call it food apartheid, but it's a specific approach to saying, hey,

There's something wrong in our community where health disparities and health inequities are not random.

African Americans, people of color, are disproportionately suffering more and so we need to start taking a systemic approach to looking at how our city is developing and how our city is building gaps in access to healthy, nutritious food.

So this is a little bit different

I'm not a nutritionist.

Holly Edwards was a nurse.

I am not a nurse.

I come from a master's in public health in a built environment space, so it's more about planning cities and saying that there's one thing that you have people's individual choices, but then there's also that environment that they're stuck in that may be rampant of

ABC stores or fast food restaurants, those types of things.

This is the Charlottesville Food Justice Network's equity framework that got developed over the course of three years.

I'm not going to spend too much time on it.

It is in the report and it is a foundation under which every city department had an orientation to it.

and we really dug into the practices, the core values and the vision that drives our racial equity lens as we look at food access.

And so some of those core practices that I'll just call out quickly is utilizing an equity approach to understanding and confronting historical and current roles that race, class and privilege play in our local food system.

We also wanted to acknowledge systemic barriers,

create stronger partnerships and relationships with community members facing food injustice and embrace the intersection of community food goals with housing, transportation, economic development, public health, politics, because it's a thing, school, agriculture, and culture.

So this is that zoom out shot of the five strategies that the network organizations really honed in on.

That is transportation, affordable housing, urban agriculture, neighborhood food access, and healthy school foods.

So we're really looking at the ways in which food access is playing at the intersection of all of those.

something that's directly straightforward.

It's really systemic.

It's food systems planning.

It's something that has been missing for a very long time.

None of the city comprehensive plans mention food, which is part of the reason why we haven't been able to tackle this problem in a holistic way.

None of them are really looking at the development or the underdevelopment of food access in neighborhoods.

And so these strategies are a way that you can increase

Transportation or access to grocery stores that are now starting to crop up around an urban ring.

They're not really in people's neighborhoods anymore.

Affordable housing, that was a huge topic for tonight.

So don't feel like I need to reiterate how important that is.

But rent is a huge burden on people's food budget.

So you're either choosing to keep the lights on, pay rent, or put food on the table for some people.

Those are the strategies.

Here are some of the network partners.

Investing in community engagement.

OK, Tammy left.

So this is that part where we try to sneak in some folks that weren't really on the agenda to speak.

But I'll take it really quickly.

Here's our timeline for engagement.

With the food equity initiative, we really took that first three months or so to buckle down on research and grant writing.

We don't think the city can do this work alone, so grants are very helpful.

One grant that we were able to win about three grants over this course and one of the major ones that was directly involved with crafting the strategies was the local food, local places, workshops, the EPA.

That award for technical assistance did not come with any money.

It came with a lot of

coordination that needed to go with it, and we had the fundraise for it, but it was important enough for us to do that.

So we did that for the city and for the food equity initiative.

In March, you can see that's when we started to ramp up our engagement with city departments and really meeting with each and every one of them.

There were 10 partners that signed on to local food, local places, so part of that ramped up engagement.

was prompted because we actually found out that we won that award in January.

So we were able to engage a little bit more.

You can see the timeline up until August.

Not going to spend too much time on it.

I think the most important part is to see all these different levels of community engagement being with city departments, non-profit leaders, as well as the youth and resident leadership that's a part of the food equity initiative and engaging really every level of our community.

Here's a little bit more about the engagement process that's also in the report, just highlighting that there are a core group of nonprofit leaders that meet.

There are residents that are meeting from the IRC community, resettled refugee community, as well as communities of color.

Ms. Rosa Key is in the audience.

I hope she's still sitting behind me.

for making her proud.

She's smiling.

Thank you, Rosa.

We have one-on-one interviews with all the department heads in the city of Albemarle, CATEC, and then bi-monthly food equity convenings.

This is just a snap panel.

This isn't all of our folks.

I'm not going to keep this up for too long.

But these are some of the kids and residents that were engaged in the food equity initiative.

A little overview of local food, local places that happened July 16th through 17th.

This was that award for National Technical Assistance.

We did this so well for the EPA that they invited us to present.

at the Community Food Systems Conference in December.

So we're going to be that model city.

That was awesome.

So Local Food, Local Places was broken into two days.

This first day is just a snapshot.

of the community tours.

That picture to the left is our whole group after today.

Most of the people stuck around.

We have 54 participants representing 28 organizations engaged in a day-long community tour.

Ford Emory Foundation, six representing state and federal partners, five city departments.

That was Neighborhood Development Services, Parks and Rec, Human Services, Charlottesville City Schools, which I know is not technically a city department,

Y'all all in the same party, so I throw you up there.

And then City Market.

And then we also, like I said, we align with different sectors, so housing and redevelopment is a core focus.

So it was great to also have Riverbend Development Corporation, Piedmont Housing Alliance, Charlottesville Redevelopment Housing Authority, and the Public Housing Association of Residents, FAR, really be along with that process and lend their voice and ear and

Engagement, and then those 10 nonprofit community organizations.

Just some pictures of the day.

These are all in the report.

But I was engaging on community tour.

And then the workshop, this got 83 participants, which was way off the chart.

The local food, local places workshop is designed for 25 to 50 people.

This is why they liked us, because we had a lot of engagement.

And I think that is just representative of how much that people care about food in our community in every neighborhood.

It's not really focused on one neighborhood at all.

And so those are some views from the workshop.

And this is where I turn it over.

So we wanted to talk a little bit about moving forward, what we see next.

This is our report, but we wanted to highlight a few of the goals that we have moving forward.

So this is a quick overview of some of our next steps.

We did a pilot with the community advocates program that Tamara Wright is the lead of, and we want to launch a full program.

We found that that was a very successful way to engage grassroots community members.

in leading the initiative.

To continue to catalyze ongoing organizational partners for greater efficiency and impact, we found that as nonprofits engaged in this collaborative process, it strengthened our work.

It helped us to amplify a racial equity lens to our work through conversations and training and analysis.

We want to finalize the issue chapters with specific work plans.

So the five core issue areas, each issue area,

had a core group of what Chantelle called chapter champions who were working on a detailed work plan for that chapter.

So urban farming, healthy school foods, housing, transportation, those five areas and food access.

We have a few of them done and we want to finalize those with the specific work plans.

Want to continue to work with the city departments to implement the action plans.

In your very comprehensive report that we turned in, page 29 starts the,

city department work plans.

These are kind of one page overviews of what each city department saw as the intersection of their work with food equity.

We feel that that's a really important initiatives to move forward and that the city departments can only do that with the support of the community and grassroots organizations.

In addition, the local food, local places produce a very robust action plan.

Many of those are very similar and they build on each other and reflect each other.

We would like to continue to work with the city comprehensive planning process to include food equity.

When the process was live last year, Chantelle and others with the network were very involved in that and had suggested some specific language.

And then, of course, continue to raise funds for project implementation.

Given some of the questions that Councillor Galvin had this morning, I just thought I would take a minute to overview the funding.

This is in your packet.

It just shows a brief overview of

This pilot year, our first year, on the left column you'll see the overall expenses for the food equity initiative and on the right column what the $65,000 funds that were awarded through city council were spent on.

So much of that was spent on facilitation for Chantelle's time to lead the network, also to launch the community advocate program.

which is in conjunction with the youth food justice interns, a few of whom were here earlier but had to head home also to help support the community meetings which included some of the local food, local places as well as ongoing other meetings and just other miscellaneous supplies.

One of those matches required?

So was the city funding required?

No.

I was saying, I'm sorry.

Yes, they did.

None of the particular funds there required a match, but it was a mutual.

I think when we came to you last fall, we had maybe some of these already secured and we used that as an opportunity to ask you for funds as well as vice versa.

Moving forward over on the right side, you'll see the projected budget for the fiscal year 2020.

We do have two grants for the fiscal year 20 that require matching.

Both are federal grants.

And they can be matched by any funding source?

Non-federal.

And that was it.

Yeah.

I'd just like to say that it's pretty amazing what you've done in a year and you've managed to

work with so many internal departments of the city bureaucracy.

You've gotten so many different groups in the community working together.

And it's almost like a incredible model just for comprehensive planning period that is truly, truly community oriented.

So thank you so much for giving us that model and for your commitment and passion and also the the hard nosed practical

skills that you bring to this whole discussion.

I mean, you gave us a budget.

You gave us your hope for matching grants.

You've been applying for grants.

Yeah, this is a great report and I think I would have less complaints about nonprofits and funding for them if we received reports like this.

And not only the reports, I think what I have seen and heard throughout the community is that you're able to do this work and not and

The engagement piece, people feel welcomed, they feel listened to, they feel heard, they don't feel judged in any way.

And food is a very hard conversation to have in the communities that you're having them in, right?

And so I appreciate that, you know,

the way people feel as a result of this, but I think every

Nonprofit should look at this as a model, not only for what you're going to do in December, but in terms of how to present information and give us the entire picture and then let us know what moving forward looks like and the attempts to ensure that there are funding streams outside of the city.

Thank you.

It was not easy.

It may look like it was easy, but it really wasn't at all.

But I will say the people like Rosa Key, Bamal, Joy Johnson, Audrey Oliver, I have the pleasure to see a lot of different sides of community members.

I don't only interact with them in one way.

I don't only have to see one side of someone because I'm

in that space a lot and in different spaces so being able to build those relationships there's no science to that that's not anything we could really write and report I think that that was something that

came from a very long time of relationship building.

So I know that this is definitely a model and I just don't want to maybe flavor it to say that anyone can do this because it is very difficult and it does take a while.

I do think this is what we all should be looking for and food is one of those things that when you're able to share a meal with someone regardless of what you're eating, you're sharing a meal, you're filling your stomach up.

It's humanity.

We have a lot of tough conversations across the dinner table growing up for me and so that's just part of my culture and that's something that I brought to the table when I do engage with community members.

I'm just honored to be able to have that perspective, but then also to be a part of a lot of nonprofits.

And we have been stretching ourselves for a very long time, very long time.

I mean, we started conversations around race.

Prior to 2017 and that was the year that I mean it was a week before the rallies that we Had held our roundtable on race and food in Charlottesville, and so I can't you know not the fact that there's about 30 nonprofit organizations that have been working for two years and

between 2015 and 2017 to start really digging into race.

And that really laid a foundation for us to have better conversations, be in the same space.

It did not happen over the same month period.

Yeah and I'll just say as someone who had concerns because you all know I had a lot of concerns and questions and just being skeptical about the funding use and what had happened in the past so I'm acknowledging that now and acknowledging that over the course of the year watching it that has shifted but I will say what you didn't say is that most people can't do the work that you all are doing and that's

I mean they just need someone else to be able to assist them to do it and I think that this is you know just a time to highlight that because this is how it's done.

And looking at those intersections especially when you read like the map reports and look at

the health disparities in the area and knowing how critical food is and also not just food but the conversations that you can have when you build trust around the other areas that are critical.

I will say I don't think we were able to make a really compelling case last time either because it is

such a systems approach, it's hard to talk about.

And so we've been learning about how to talk about it.

And it's also very much shaped our organization.

So as you all know, City School Year Garden is focused on that, just gardens in the schools and doing that work.

Over the course of the past two years, we launched the Charlottesville Food Justice Network, which works at a system and policy level.

And then we also became the backbone organization for the Urban Agricultural Collective of Charlottesville.

And Mayor Walker too, if I, and colleagues, I understand that you've got two grants, they're three years, they require matches.

One is three years.

And that's the one where you need $125,000 for three years.

And you need that match for the remainder of FY20, which has got nine more months left in it.

So I'm just getting the temperature of my colleagues here.

I would seriously like the council to consider providing a matching grant for the federal program that they already have the grant money for for fiscal year 20.

And that is within, I believe, our council discretionary funding levels, but I think that this is

And then that means in FY21 and FY22 you get in the pipeline for the budget cycle discussions like we typically do, but right now

I do see that that's what discretionary funds are best used for is when there is a grant-funded position, when there is grant money to be gotten and you have to seize it and you have proven the concept, you have proof of concept in front of us that you've done so much work, as you say, at the personal, the community, and the policy level.

So I don't want to lose this momentum.

I would be in agreeance with that.

So I think, yeah, go ahead.

I mean, whatever you want to do with your funds, but I'm just saying you remember you got other items that you're trying to fund to within your discretionary funds for this fiscal year.

And the amounts, you know, it's getting larger and larger.

So what are you going to do once you go over that?

All I can say is that this is something that was started a year ago.

with basically like a pile of money.

They have really worked hard demonstrating how this should work, can work.

They've gotten the federal government to believe it.

That's another layer of monitoring to make sure that you're crossing T's and dotting I's.

I just feel that

This is a really good investment.

They've proven such.

I know there's competing factors.

I just think that this is one that, in my personal estimation, is more than worthy.

And they've shown their worthiness with the thoroughness of their report.

And the proof is in the pudding, the good pudding, that is.

I feel like I might have asked this.

I don't know.

So we are going for that.

The particular funding that we're working on with city council is at the upper level.

It's not at a program level necessarily.

So each of our partner organizations

will still be raising funds to do the program work that they're doing that build into the food equity initiative.

This is to support the systems work that does those, the partnership with the city departments, the work planning, the city comprehensive plan language.

Yeah, I'm just asking because we're doing our best to try to streamline requests into things that are all being assessed with the same type of criterion.

And as I suggested that that would get back into a regular budget cycle for FY21 and FY22 but they specifically needed the matching in FY20.

Yes.

I would agree with such.

And I support it.

This was definitely for a future agenda, but wanted to give staff direction about the resolution.

OK.

So we want to bring that back next.

Well, in November?

So November's OK?

November's OK. And it'd be an appropriation.

Thank you very much.

Thank you all very much.

Report estimates for staff calls for the Equity and Inclusion Department.

So much excitement.

Counselors, we're here to talk about equity once again.

You'll recall that once upon a time when I sat up there with you, I said this would be a priority and we convened a group of staff and community members.

We made presentation to you in both May and August with those recommendations.

And when we were here six weeks ago, you asked to come back with a report about what it would cost to implement the recommendations.

You have the report before you.

I want to hit on a couple of highlights.

The dollar amount that's in there is

what might be imagined with one plan about realizing the recommendations during the year that we're in.

I want to be clear that if you make a commitment to staff positions, you'd be talking about ongoing costs.

That'd be an important discussion for the FY21 budget cycle.

And that I believe that those costs are just over half a million dollars to staff the office in the way annually that the

Committee had recommended to you all and we have discussed in our past two presentations.

I think that it is extraordinarily important that should there be an office or individuals working on the equity issue, they need to be resourced appropriately.

They need to have a position within the organization that has influence and access to the top leadership.

They need to be educated about the conditions in our organization and they need to be working toward defined metrics, you know, and be data driven.

And so the proposal that you see before you and the costs included, imagine that if we're moving as quickly as possible,

I believe that we could have the director level person here this year by the beginning of the new calendar year and that we would be able to onboard one of the other two staff positions for only a quarter.

So you have some partial annualized costs in there.

On top of that, obviously when you have staff positions, you have operational costs, and the most important part of all of this are the training components that need to get rolled out to the entire organization.

Those costs are all modified depending on timing and how quickly, if you wanted to move forward, that you would want to move forward.

and so I know that we have some questions about what monies are available and should we wait for the new human resources director to be here for that recruitment and that obviously makes some modification to the timeline.

I've asked Mr. Davidson to come you know from his home and sit with us and I

So one of the questions that, thank you all for having me.

One of the questions that Ms. Galvin had asked centered around is the strategic initiatives different from the full discretionary funds and what's included in those pots?

Just to note, those are the same things.

The strategic initiatives are the council discretionary funds that you guys use for off-cycle requests or any initiatives that come before you that are not in the annual budget process that you guys want to provide funding for.

Also, current balance, there was a question about the current balance of there's $444,000 available to be spent.

Of that, $159,000 has not been spoken for whatsoever.

The $284,000 was set aside for equity items.

Some of those had been previously dedicated, such as the scholarship program, the ethnic study course, however,

None of these and also there was an allocation for the Blue Ribbon Commission on Race Memorials and Public Spaces and those items are available to be reprogrammed and we have done so with the Blue Ribbon Commission dollars because of various items we've reallocated that to the

Civil Rights Pilgrimage, the Business Equity Fund, the most recent one was the City Schools Gifted Teachers that came before you.

Those were all items that came out of that.

So that is still at $180,000 and it's still within what was the original equity funds and we wanted to separate those out because you got, because council had said

They wanted those to sit in and to be available for equity items.

So that is why we have those two different amounts.

Technically it is $444,000 because you can reprogram any of these amounts because they have not been spent yet.

You've said you want to spend on the equity package items, but none of those programs have come.

fully before or been spent.

So those would be available to be reallocated.

And one of the items is roughly just shy of $60,000.

That is one item that when we set this out,

A couple days later we got a request for those funds, so that is about to come out of those items.

So 159 is just not allocated to anything at all, but the 284 had been, but it's really available to be reprogrammed.

And there's another number I'm missing after that?

No.

Okay.

That was it.

44 was within that.

Yeah.

I thought I heard other smaller numbers.

OK, because I'm like, I know I wrote down right here.

So that's those are dollars that have to come from this 444.

And then we're asked, we're talking about I'm just trying to make sure I'm adding up numbers and don't exceed something we don't have.

We aren't receiving things we have.

OK, just 155 and then this number 197.

So wherever the funds are coming from, right?

Because for this position, in terms of especially getting the director on board so that we can start this department and figure out what

Equity looks like in the city.

This is the only thing that in terms of work plan that Councilor Bellamy and I had on it.

Making sure that this recruitment for the director position starts and is hired by

hopefully the end of the year to get things rolling.

And I would like to also say where we were leading here, the county has already hired and made that commitment.

UVA has made the commitment.

They are open and a department have asked me to come and do opening remarks for their meeting for that.

I agree with you wholeheartedly, but let's not get it twisted.

No, but we still started.

We wrote the equity package.

I don't think this is the point to get defensive about it.

I just want to make sure that we give ourselves

The proper, like not kudos, but like these other institutions, they've created offices of equity and whatnot, but we've been putting resources and money behind our actions, like not just talking about it, not thinking about developing policy.

My goal is to get our HR director in, which is slated to start on October 21st.

From that, that will provide us with an opportunity to go out for a person to actually lead